Chapter 23 #3
No answer. But I feel him—that sensation for which I have no name is stronger than ever, almost painful. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think my unconscious was trying to warn me of danger.
“By the way,” I continue, subtly adjusting my grip on my knife, “was it you who left that rose in my chambers three nights ago? Rather rude if you ask me, sneaking into a lady’s room uninvited. But the flower was a pretty gesture, despite all the creeping and looming.”
Still no answer. Suddenly, I’m convinced to the very marrow of my bones that he is standing directly behind me.
I whip around, assuming the stance he taught me last night, knife at the ready, blade angled out.
And I smile. “I suppose loomers like you cannot help but loom when opportunity arises, now can you?”
Valtar looks down at me. Moonlight slants across his tall figure but cannot break the deep shadow cast by his black hood, which obscures his eyes from my sight, revealing only the hard line of his mouth and the edge of his jaw.
Something about his very soul feels shadowed, enabling him to blend into his surroundings even now, even when he stands right in front of me, making him difficult to discern.
I lower my guard, tipping my head to one side.
“How now, Prince Valtar? Are you going to admit it? I’ve had a closer look at your little air-vent highways.
A clever means of getting around undetected, I’m sure!
Or are you going to play the innocent and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about? ”
He moves like lightning. One moment, he stands before me, solid and still—the next he’s taken hold of my wrist, squeezing so hard I gasp and drop the knife. It hits the ground with a metallic ring, but when I bend to retrieve it, he twists my arm, and I find myself on my knees.
The cold edge of steel rests against my throat.
I stare up at him. His momentum knocked his hood partially back, revealing more of his face. His eyes, like two chips of night sky, gaze into mine. They are utterly cold, devoid of all feeling. My heart lurches painfully, and I blink five times before I can bear to draw breath.
Then I curse: “Damn it, Valtar! If I’d known you were going to do that, I would have given a good jab at your kidneys before you got this far!”
For a moment, he does not answer. His expression remains fixed, unreadable. Then his nostrils flare. “Were I an assassin bent on your destruction,” he says, his voice a threatening growl, “you would be dead right now.”
“All right, all right,” I huff, flexing my fingers, which are starting to go numb in his grip. “I’m hopeless, I know. But considering I’ve only had one night of these exercises, you can’t expect much better, can you?”
Another long silence. Finally, he seems to come to some decision, shakes his head slightly, and lets go.
Turning away from me, he utters a hissing sound that might be a curse, but it’s too soft for me to say for certain.
That odd, unnamed sensation of mine picks up something from him, however: an aura, a vibration of soul.
A stink. It’s like…guilt? But that doesn’t make any sense.
What does Valtar have to feel guilty over?
Unless it’s spying on my rooms while I sleep and stalking me while I enjoy a private moment with Lord Elis.
I pluck up my fallen knife, get to my feet, and jab the air once, twice.
“You’ve proven your point,” I say. “I need more practice before I’m going to be anywhere near ready to defend myself.
Shall we get on with it then?” I resume first position, legs braced, knife gripped at the angle he showed me.
Valtar finally turns, looks at me again.
He’s so huge, a hulking figure even with bowed shoulders and bent head.
His face is turned sideways, half-covered in shadows, while the other half is illuminated by moonlight.
All over I am struck by the severity of his features—the ridge of his cheekbone, the plane of his cheek, the harsh hook of his nose.
And yet his lips remain as soft, full, and sensitive as ever, even in this unforgiving light.
“Tell me, Princess,” he says, a strange spark gleaming in the depths of his eye, “are you still intending to escape?”
I lower my guard, surprised at the question. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? Nothing’s changed since last night.”
“Hasn’t it?”
Suddenly he’s in motion again. I yelp and am obliged to move my feet quickly to avoid his blow.
I suspect he merely allows me to parry his stroke, that he could easily have slid his blade between my ribs if he wanted to.
He’s letting me build my confidence, that’s all.
The strength of his arm as I move to deflect it is undeniable, but nowhere near as strong as I would expect were he in earnest.
He goes in for another attack, and I attempt the deflection and thrust he taught me last night, aiming for the tendons of his arm.
I hold back, however, unwilling to truly harm him, though I suspect I couldn’t, willing or otherwise.
He snarls at me, “Go for blood!” and lunges again.
My feet move in the pattern he taught me last night, and my arm lashes in the counterstroke.
I almost hit him, but he avoids me at the last moment, stepping back several paces.
He begins to circle me, panting hard, though the exertion he expended was negligible at best.
“Lord Elis returned to the men’s quarters with your colors in hand,” he says, hooded eyes fixed on me.
“So?” I toss hair back from my face. “You did too after our interlude. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Doesn’t it?”
He drives in close once more, and we exchange parries and ripostes. One of his blows comes down hard against my knife, jarring the bones of my hand so that my fingers uncurl. The knife drops, and I curse, sticking my stinging knuckles in my mouth.
“Pick it up,” Valtar snarls.
“Grouchy,” I mutter, and bend to retrieve my weapon. But Valtar moves too quickly. Taking a single long stride, he kicks it out of reach. The next instant, his knife is poised at my throat again, the blade tilting my chin up so that I’m forced to meet his gaze.
My breath catches. The muscles in my jaw constrict.
Deep down in my belly, heat roars to life.
Is this the same fiery buildup I experienced when I lay helpless in Joro’s grasp?
The rising burn in my veins, ignited from the very pit of my soul?
Or is it something else entirely? Something equally hot, equally dangerous. Something pleasurable.
I let out a small huff of air. “All right,” I snap, rolling my eyes.
“You’ve made your point: I’m inept at weaponry.
It’s not like it ever came up in the apothecary’s shop!
” I move to knock his hand aside. For just a moment, I feel resistance…
and in that moment, I realize how very vulnerable I would be were he truly intent on my harm. Were he my enemy.
But he’s not. He’s Valtar. He withdraws his arm, lets his knife drop to his side, and stands there, all silent and brooding as I get back to my feet. I look around for my own blade, spot it some yards away. It’s got to be so battered and dulled by now with all this poor handling.
“Of course the scarf doesn’t mean anything,” I say, stomping over to the knife and swiping it up.
I turn to Valtar again, glaring. “I told you, I don’t intend to marry any of the champions.
But,” I add, shaking the tip of the blade his way, “if I were to change my mind, what does it matter to you anyway?”
His teeth flash in a grimace. “So you do mean to change your mind.”
I snort. “That’s not what I said, now is it?” My eyes narrow with growing suspicion. “You were there, weren’t you. In the gardens this morning. When I was out with Lord Elis.”
He turns his head to one side, silent.
“I knew it!” I cry, throwing up my hands. “You are, beyond a doubt, the worst of snoops! What business is it of yours to spy on me while I’m with one of my champions? Well? Have you anything to say for yourself?”
A long, slow breath eases from his lungs. Then he stands a little straighter and almost meets my eye. “So long as you are here, you are not safe, Princess.”
“Oh, is that your excuse? That you were protecting me?” I shake my head, raw fury boiling in my breast. “I have a whole palaceful of guards, don’t I?”
“And what good did they do you when Joro made his attempt on your life?”
“They’ve improved since then. They’re quite lively and alert these days, blast them.”
“And where are they now?”
As his words roll across the empty, open space, they seem somehow to emphasize the loneliness of our situation, the solitude positively echoing around us.
I feel again that sudden sense of vulnerability which I too often ignore.
I’d worked so hard to escape my guards tonight and am grateful for the reprieve from their watchful eyes.
But without them, what sort of chance would I have if set upon by an enemy?
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, with more confidence than I feel, “since you are here.”
His teeth flash again in a snarl before he turns away from me. His growling voice floats over his shoulder to my ear. “And where will I be once you’ve escaped this place and fled into the wilds? When all Mhoryga’s dracori are hunting you down, and you haven’t a friend in the world?”
I cross my arms, standing with my weight on one foot. “Sounds to me like you think I ought to take a champion for protection after all.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you might as well. And you don’t approve of Lord Elis, do you? You think he can’t protect me. Well, maybe I think he can! He’s the only one who managed to kill any of those votyr last night, isn’t he?”
Valtar scoffs. “Elis got lucky.”
“Maybe I need a bit of luck.” I widen my stance again. “Or maybe you’re a dragon-eaten idiot who’s got himself bent out of shape over nothing. Maybe I’m better equipped to handle myself than you imagine.”
He rounds on me, mouth open as though to speak.
I don’t give him the chance. I lunge, moving faster than he expects judging by the slight flare of his eyes.
My muscles are already beginning to adapt to the drills, moving with more fluidity and grace than they did last night.
He wards off my blow, but I move into the next maneuver, then the third, fourth, fifth.
He hasn’t taught me beyond that, but I let instinct guide me and make another lunge.
He parries that, but I don’t let the slight opportunity I see go to waste.
I lift my arm, blade flashing, and suddenly, I’m pressed up against him, torso to torso, and my blade lies against his jaw, glinting in the moonlight.
Valtar’s black eyes stare into mine. He does not breathe, though my breath comes in little gasping pants. He merely stands there, frozen. A statue of fire-hewn marble.
“I won,” I breathe, my lips twisting in a deadly smile.
“No,” he answers. His eyes flick downward. I draw back an inch, looking for myself, and find he’s got the tip of his knife pressed against my abdomen. “Until you’ve taken your enemy’s last breath from his lungs,” he says, his voice a rumble of distant thunder, “you’ve won nothing.”
“Oh.” I stare at that knife for three labored breaths. My blood pulses, my heart races. “Is that so?”
Then, before I can think better of it, I slip my arm around the back of his neck, haul his head down, stand up on my toes, and press my mouth to his.
Time stops.
The stars above us spin in their distant orbits, whirling in the dance of eons.
Under my feet, the mountain itself seems to rise up from its ancient roots, spinning to keep pace with the spheres.
And, in the center of it all, there stand the two of us.
Alone and apart. A pillar of stone and a living flame, opposites and equals in conjoined counterpoint.
But I feel the mighty heat at his core, the furnace which roars with equal force to my own, alive and ready to consume all in either blistering destruction or terrifying renewal.
It only remains to be seen which it might be, if the stone which contains it will break apart and let it free.
But in this moment, his stone does not crack.
I kiss him, but he does not kiss me in return.
Neither does he move, not even to breathe.
Only the hand holding the knife to my abdomen turns, the blade angled away, and I lean in more closely, pressing my hips against him, filling the little space between us.
It cannot last forever though. Even a timeless moment must end.
With a little gasp, I break away and peer up into his eyes. Eyes which are wide, fixed. Staring down at me in an expression of absolute shock.
“Well, Valtar?” I whisper against his frozen lips. “Did that take your breath away?”
He steps back. The movement is so abrupt, he breaks my hold on the back of his head, and I stagger to catch my balance.
He stares at me still, the lines around his eyes tensing, as though he’s trying to blink but forgotten how.
His mouth, still parted, his lips still swollen, he looks for a moment as though he will speak.
Then he turns and marches for the tunnel.
“Wait!” I cry out after him. “Will you practice with me tomorrow?”
He does not answer. I watch his massive shoulders hunch as he ducks to pass through the low entrance and vanish into the dark.
“Valtar!” I call again.
But he is gone. Distantly, I hear the lift door shut, the gears clank and whir.
I am alone out here on the mountaintop. More alone, perhaps, than I have ever been.